North America Organic Brewers Festival and Great Food!!

Had a great afternoon at the North America Organic Brewers Festival today. Daniel goes for the beer... I go for the food!! My favorite vegan food cart Viva! Vegetarian Grill was there again this year. They sell the best Vegan Philly Cheesesteak I have ever tasted. We ate two Philly Cheesesteaks and two foot longs with lots of beer in between of course! ;) 

One Foot Long Tofurky Hot Dog

Viva! Vegetarian Grill's Philly Cheese Steak w/ Cashew Cheese Sauce

We ate under this tree :)

The weather was drippy... warm. Overall I think I preferred it this way. I always tend to get a bit overheated at these kinds of events and the beer drinking doesn't help.  So the way this works is you pay for a plastic cup (bio-degradable) and tokens. Each token buys you about 2 oz of beer. Just enough to know if you want to fill up or move on to another draft.  I only sampled since I was the designated driver. And like I said before, I was there for the food.  

mmmm!

Yumm! (no I'm not drunk.... just mid-blink ;)

Beers:
I am not much of an adventurous drinker. I tend to stick to Hefeweizen and fruit beers.  Here's the small list of the ones had. There were over 60 beers to choose from and all Organic!

Captured by Porches Brewing Co Saint Helens, OR ( **** 2nd Favorite - A Perfect Hef )

Bavarian Hefeweizen / Bavarian Hefeweizen

Eel River Brewing Fortuna, CA

Acai Berry Wheat / Fruit Infused American Wheat  ( *** Fruity and light )

Laht Neppur Brewing Co. Waitsburg, WA ( ***** Favorite this year!! )

Peach Hefeweizen / Fruit Beer

Mt. Emily Ale House La Grande, OR  (** Good )

Heifer-Weizen / Wheat Beer 

Ambacht Brewing Hillsboro, OR ( A bit too strong for my taste buds but overall good)

Barrel Aged Honey Triple / Belgian Specialty

Bison Brewing Berkeley, CA   ( Good but a bit strange. I kept wanted to have pasta ;)

Honey Basil Ale / Herbed/ Spiced Beer 

Some of the beers were not vegan as indicated by the name since they contained honey. I do tend to like having honey in a few things so I can't call myself a 100% vegan :( but I try. 

Daniel's tried many beers and took notes. His review will be up soon.

Studying up on the deliciousness.

I am glad we went. The rain and budget constraints almost kept us from going but it was a blast and no surprising the food was AWESOME!!

Fathers Day 2012: Books, Play & Deschutes Brew Pub PDX

This year Avery (my 17 yr old son) and I surprised my husband Daniel by taking him to go see a great play at Portland Center Stage called Black Pearl Sings. We arrived early, about 40 mins to kill so we walked two blocks up the street to Powell's, Portland's famous city of books!  We looked for Sanjay Patel's The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities for Daniel. We didn't find it but did find another one of his books called Ramayana: Divine Loophol with great stories and beautiful illustrations. Daniel has always admired this artist's work after seeing Pixar's The Incredibles.

Black Pearl Sings was very well acted and incredibly sung! Both actresses were very convincing in their portrayal of wanted to break free of their imposed restraints from race and gender inequalities.  Avery wanted to stay after for the group discussion with the actors and activists about racism in our society now and then. It was a memorable event.

Afterwords, we crossed the street to Deschutes Brew Pub for a wonderful meal. I can't believe I didn't take pictures (could totally kick myself!!). But it was a great ending to our wonderful day. Daniel and I ordered their quinoa & cashew burgers with sweet potato fries and a salad. It was the only vegan meal on their menu although they did offer to make their wild mushroom flatbread pizza vegan by substituting their marinara for olive oil garlic mix which sounded really yummy but I was really in the mood to try their burger. Very tasty!! Avery had the white cheddar cheese with Obsidian beer mac and cheese. He loved it. Daniel and I had their Hefeweizen. Their Hefeweizen is one of the best Oregon Hefs we've tried and is a beautiful interpretation of a traditional German Weizen ale.  Daniel also had their white IPA which he said went very well with his burger. Deschutes beers are vegan unless they specifically say they have honey.

It's always nice to not have to worry about finding a vegan restaurant on special days like this. We love Portland for it's culture, great food and best of all the beer!